Plastic eyeglass lenses or the like are provided with various resin coatings formed on the front face or rear face thereof to ensure scratch resistance and/or to give various functions. Patent Document 1 discloses a method for forming a resin coating of this kind, in which a resin coating liquid is applied onto a substrate by spin-coating and is then dried.
In the technique disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2003-290704, when a coating liquid is applied, a lens is gripped at the edge and rotated by a gripping and rotating member to perform a coating process. After a coating film is formed, the lens is detached from the gripping and rotating member, and then is subjected to a curing process.
However, according to this technique, where the gripping force is set at a level that provides a stable grip, the lens can be easily deformed during the coating process and so forth, thereby hindering formation of a uniform film. Further, after the coating process, the lens needs to be detached from the gripping and rotating member, so the operation is troublesome.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 5-317797 discloses a technique, in which, while a disc-shaped substrate treated as a coating target object is held, a resin coating liquid is applied onto the substrate by spin-coating. Thereafter, the resin coating liquid is dried by blowing a warm gas and radiating ultraviolet rays thereon.
However, this technique is arranged to hold the coating target object by an opening formed at the center thereof, i.e., this technique is applicable only to a coating target object having an opening at the center, such as optical disc, and is not applicable to lenses. Further, a coating liquid nozzle, drying implement, rotating implement, curing implement, and so forth are present in one chamber, so the nozzle may be stopped due to scattering of the coating liquid and/or formation of a uniform coating film may be hindered due to deposition of the coating liquid on the drying implement and curing implement.
Another known apparatus includes a coating film forming implement, a drying implement, and a curing implement disposed in respective receptacles. According to this apparatus, a lens is held by suction and is sequentially transferred to the respective receptacles to continuously perform cleaning of the lens and coating and curing of a coating liquid.
However, this apparatus specifies nothing about a suction force for holding the lens, and thus cannot deny the possibility of relevant problems being caused, such as deformation of the lens. Further, this apparatus does not include a drying process independently performed, so a drying process is inevitably performed inside a container common to the coating process. In this case, foreign matters may be deposited on the lens due to drying, and/or the film thickness becomes less uniform due to a temperature change.